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To accelerate climate action, citizens are suing governments

All this rests on the notion that humans can somehow tune the climate to their liking – whatever that may be – which of course has never been shown to be true. Are court cases and ‘rule books’ just the latest attempts to impose the will of one group in society, over everyone else? As this report says: ‘But such court battles are long, and often fail’. And ‘long’ often means expensive.

After climate talks in Bonn, many criticize outcomes as weak. Increasingly, concerned citizens see legal action as a path for climate action — a thousand climate lawsuits are currently active around the world, reports DW.com.

As climate negotiators return home after a two-week “intersessional” climate change conference in Bonn, Germany, their homework is only half finished. The COP24 annual climate conference, scheduled for December in Katowice, Poland, is supposed to decide a “rule book” for implementing the Paris Agreement.

But with so much at stake, there’s not nearly enough action, environmental activists say.

There is a lack of political consensus around implementation, and little clarity. Industrial countries lack the political will for climate action; funds are missing for developing countries to adapt to the impacts of climate change; and fossil fuel lobbyists still hold a main seat in the negotiations.

On the bright side, Patricia Espinosa — executive secretary of the United Nations climate change framework — celebrated the success of the Talanoa Dialogue, a tool for inclusivity that has been pushed to the forefront of climate talks.

“Enthusiasm about raising ambition, and working together and uniting efforts … has transpired from this very first phase of the Talanoa dialogue,” she said.

Yet concerns loom over implementation of the rule book.

Against this background of bickering, closed-door lobbying and nobody wanting to pick up the tab, climate advocates are turning to suing governments as a solution for change. About a thousand lawsuits are active around the world; whether they will see success is another question.

When the chickens in this alarmist climate scare eventually come home to roost and the science is shown to be unreliable, who will be doing the suing then? There will be masses of angry tax payers and consumers wanting to sue scientists, academia and journals. Then we have all the bandwagons of investors and money men who are exploiting the alarmism. The mind boggles.

Tom Crowley, a key member of Mann’s global warming hockey team, didn’t seem overly concerned when he stated: “I am not convinced that the ‘truth’ is always worth reaching if it is at the cost of damaged personal relationships.” However another researcher saw a problem with this reasoning: “What if climate change appears to be just mainly a multi-decadal natural fluctuation? They’ll kill us probably…”
. . .
Peter Thorne of the U.K. Met Office also advised caution, saying: “Observations do not show rising temperatures throughout the tropical troposphere unless you accept one single study and approach and discount a wealth of others. This is just downright dangerous. We need to communicate the uncertainty and be honest. Phil, hopefully we can find time to discuss these further if necessary…” In another e-mail he stated: “I also think the science is being manipulated to put a political spin on it which for all our sakes might not be too clever in the long run.” [bold added]

Larry Bell: Virtually all of this is based upon unfounded representations that we are experiencing a known human-caused climate crisis, a claim based upon speculative theories, contrived data and totally unproven modeling predictions.

New phase of globalization could undermine efforts to reduce CO2 emissions
May 14, 2018, University of East Anglia

Some production activities are relocating from China and India to other developing countries, such as Indonesia, Vietnam and Thailand, particularly for raw materials and intermediate goods production in energy-intensive sectors.

In turn, the growth of CO2 emissions embodied in Chinese exports has slowed or reversed, while the emissions embodied in exports, such as textiles, from less-developed regions like Vietnam and Bangladesh have surged.
. . .
Publishing their findings in Nature Communications, the authors warn this trend may seriously undermine international efforts to reduce global emissions that increasingly rely on rallying voluntary contributions of more, smaller, and less-developed nations.